Ruling in Texas school funding lawsuit may come down Thursday

AUSTIN — The public education funding lawsuit more than half of the 1,029 school districts in Texas filed against the state three years ago is about to close another chapter.

State District Judge John Dietz — who is refereeing the legal battle among the approximately 20 attorneys representing the state and all the plaintiffs — is expected to issue his second ruling as early as Thursday.

Dietz ruled in favor of the school districts on Feb. 4, 2013. However, he ordered a new trial four months later, after the Texas Legislature restored $3.9 billion of the $5.4 billion of the biennial public education budget the lawmakers cut in the 2011 session when they tackled a $27 billion shortfall.

Through their respective attorneys, the school districts and other plaintiffs, including charter schools, parent groups and even the influential Texas Association of Business, contend the Legislature violated the Texas Constitution because it has not adequately funded public education.

But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office, which is representing the state, has argued lawmakers met their constitutional obligations but the school districts sued because their leaders were unhappy about being required to do more with less.

The ruling was initially expected in mid-July, but it was delayed because Abbott asked another court to have Dietz removed from the case on grounds he was biased in favor of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. Visiting Judge David Peeples disagreed with Abbott and Dietz continues to preside over the case, just like he did a decade ago when he oversaw a similar school funding lawsuit.

Although attorneys for the school districts say they can’t predict how Dietz will rule the second time, some say they are cautiously optimistic the decision will be in their favor again.

“We feel very good,” Rick Gray, who represents more than 400 school districts, said in a recent interview. “We think the law is on our side and we made a strong case.”

David Hinojosa, lead school finance attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund — which represents five of the poorest school districts in the state as well as a parent group that includes two Amarillo families — said he feels the same way.

“We’re extremely confident,” Hinojosa said Wednesday. “We never thought (the trial) should have been reopened in the first place because not much has changed by the Legislature, not funding-wise or by expectations.

“There was no new evidence from the state that it is working to provide adequate or equitable education,” Hinojosa added. “So, at the end of the day nothing has changed from Feb. 4, 2013.”

Members of the Republican-dominated Legislature said they can’t predict how Dietz will rule. However, a few like Rep. John Smithee have said publicly or privately they are rooting for the plaintiffs because a ruling against the state would force the Legislature to overhaul the school funding formulas.

Education funding experts have long noted the funding formulas are unfair to school districts such as Amarillo ISD and Lubbock ISD because each gets less than $6,000 a year for each student they educate, putting them in the bottom 20 percent in state funding.

“I am a fan of the lawsuit because there’s no political will in the Legislature” to fix the inequities in the public school funding system,” Smithee, R-Amarillo, said earlier this year. Smithee, who was first elected in 1984, is a veteran of six school funding lawsuits.

Rep. Dan Flynn, who said he represents a school district in Hunt County that is the lowest funded in the state, agreed with Smithee.

The funding formulas are unfair for rural districts like the ones he represents in his East Texas district, Flynn, R-Van, said.

“I think I’ll get in trouble for saying this but I think there’s a lot of money out there,” Flynn said. “Some of the school districts in the cities have programs we can’t offer” in rural districts.

“I got a state championship coach who drives the bus and he is also the principal of a school and that school is academically excellent,” Flynn said. “But the problem is that we don’t get to offer some of those programs that we would like to offer because we just don’t have any money.

“They are getting less than $5,000 per student,” he said about the districts he represents. “You’ve got schools all over the state that are getting in excess of$10,000. It is not right.”

Though legislators such as Reps. Charles Perry and Four Price have not been as outspoken about the funding formulas, they agree Dietz’s ruling will have a major impact on the public education debate when the Legislature is back in session in January.

“The equity piece needs to be looked up and reviewed,” Perry, R-Lubbock, said.

Price said “the timing of that litigation is important because certainly the court ruling will likely be appealed.”

Like the attorneys in the case and most legislators, and even Dietz himself, Price believes whoever loses will appeal the ruling and the case will be ultimately decided by the Texas Supreme Court, just like in previous lawsuits.

“We’ll continue monitoring and we’ll see that the legal process runs its course,” Price, R-Amarillo, said. “But it will be months before we reach the finality of it.”